Mark Gillespie
She has been a very gracious and talented leader who will be helping me as I transition into this role. We are looking forward to another great year of collecting and getting together at all of our events. I am looking forward to getting better acquainted with everyone in the organization. Last years light rains made for a shorter season than the past few years, so I am sending my pleas for bountiful rains to the gods earlier this year.
We are looking forward to the Lake Tahoe forays later in September. There will be plenty of good company, food, and hopefully mushrooms.We also want to encourage more people to get involved as a minister with the FFSC. This is a great group of people that get together once a month for a good meal and each other's company. You will stay informed and get to hear of upcoming events before they appear in the Duff. This spring you can even run for a position when we have elections for new ministers. Hint hint!
I would like to take a moment to thank our editor Madeleine Wyke for continuing with us another year. This is the biggest job in the FFSC with a constant deadline. The Duffs have been outstanding and she deserves a round of applause. All members are encouraged to contribute any articles of interest for the Duff early and often. You can call me if you have an idea and are too shy to put something forth. I would be happy to help out. One thing I have appreciated is the new format she has implemented. It's very clean and easy to read.
Over the summer. Phyllis Cole passed along a request from the secretary of NAMA: They had a peek at our organization bylaws and wanted to know if they could be offered for use to other NAMA affiliated groups. These would serve as a template for groups to draft their bylaws as they get started. We made a quick check with the ministers using our new mailing list and decided to give them the nod. Most of the group found it a compliment that our bylaws were so highly thought of. They found the titles of minister for our officers very amusing. It was decided leave those titles out to protect our originality.
With that lead in, the long promised mailing list for the FFSC is finally here. Please tell any members you speak with that it is now available. Anyone may post a message to the group. I talked with Mike Wood from the MSSF and got a few tips for managing our list, which I would like to pass along. Please only post messages relating to Federation business. Personal messages are not appropriate, i.e. selling one's automobile.
One of the topics that has circulated on the mailing list, are continuing updates on SOD (Sudden Oak Death). This plague now has a name from the scientists who first described it in Europe, Phytophthora ramorum. I had a chance to meet Phyllis Cole's niece Shannon Murphy this summer. Shannon is doing research for her masters' degree with David Rizzo at UC Davis on SOD. I mentioned to her that there might be SOD on some oaks near our house that include Quercus wislizenii, the interior live oak. She responded that no cases have been confirmed on interior live oaks and she may return in the fall to verify that our infections are SOD and in interior live oaks. I talked with a local arborist, Maureen Hamb, who pointed out a possible problem. Interior and coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia) can hybridize together and it can be very difficult to distinguish the two. Shannon gave me an ID tip for differentiating the two species. The underside of the leaves contains side veins that branch off the central vein. Leaves with ten or less side veins are coast live oaks and those with more than ten are interior live oaks. We'll keep you posted if her group determines SOD appears to be in interior live oaks as well.
I look forward to seeing all of you in the field and at our events!
Mark Gillespie, CEO
Note from the Editor: Certain info (email addresses, etc.) was subsequently removed from this article due to updates to privacy laws, etc.
